Anodyne
by Pink Apples
Summary: With just six months to live, Roxas makes a desperate attempt to find the mysterious man from his past - his last chance to survive a fatal disease. Axel/Roxas, AU.
1. Porcelain

**Title:** Anodyne  
**Genre:** AU - Romance/Mystery  
**Summary:** With just six months to live, Roxas makes a desperate attempt to find the mysterious man from his past who may be his only chance to survive a fatal disease.  
**Rating:** M  
**Pairing:** Axel/Roxas  
**Warnings:** Language / Violence / Sex  
**Comments: **Against my better judgment I'm posting this rather early. So far I've only completed two chapters and I wanted to wait until I was through about four before I started posting publicly, but well, there you are. I really hope people like this because I have the whole thing planned out and I'm really proud of it and gah! Please give me a reason to keep writing it! D:

By the way, constructive criticism is very much encouraged. I like knowing people like my stuff, but I like knowing how to improve even more! So without further ado, here's Anodyne.

**an·o·dyne** - (_noun)_ a medicine that relieves or allays pain

**Anodyne**

_Chapter One: Porcelain_

Six months before he was scheduled to die found Roxas in the employee bathroom at Wallace Insurance.

He gripped the smooth marble countertop with one white-knuckled hand as gooey remains of Captain Crunch cereal spewed from his mouth. His other hand rested on the handle of the toilet, flushing every few seconds so Tifa wouldn't hear him outside the door. The boy's shoulder blades squeezed together with every convulsion of his body. A sick Roxas seemed very out of place within a pink marble bathroom, white fluffy towels stacked neatly on the brass shelves.

Upon finishing, Roxas grabbed one of the plush towels and hurriedly wiped the vomit off his lips and chin. He dropped the towel into a nearby wastebasket before splashing his face with cold water from the stainless steel faucet. The boy gave his appearance a quick once-over in the mirror, fixing his golden hair and adjusting the collar of his button-down shirt. Finally he grabbed the handle of the bathroom door and heaved it open.

"Try to think of this as a onetime only thing, kiddo," Tifa sighed when Roxas stepped back into her office. "The employee bathroom is only for, you know, employees."

"Duly noted," Roxas said as he sank into one of the black leather chairs across from Tifa's enormous mahogany desk. Roxas had sat in this chair dozens of times before, usually clutching a Game boy while his brother Cloud dealt with both business matters and flirtation.

Tifa gave Roxas a smile, folding her manicured hands in her lap.

"So what brings you here, kid? I can hook you up with an internship if that's what you need. You're about that age."

Roxas shook his head, reaching forward to poke at a rather beautiful seashell that Tifa used as a paperweight.

"No, I just have a question about the surgery." Roxas never lifted his eyes from the shell, studying the perfect swirling pattern on its fragile body. "You know, four years ago."

"Yes, I remember, seeing as yours was the case that had me promoted from intern to agent," Tifa said quipped. "Cut to the chase, kid."

"I wanted to know about the donor."

Roxas's cheeks burned, his eyes glued to the shell as if it held the universe within its delicate walls. He finally sat back in his seat, waiting for Tifa's answer.

"Negatory, Roxas."

He knew it.

Tifa's expression softened to one of sympathy. "You know the rules. The donor requested to remain anonymous and I'd lose my job if I went against his wishes, considering the sacrifice he made."

Roxas swallowed, disappointment churning in his stomach. He finally lifted his eyes from the shell to give Tifa a weary look.

"I've tried everything," he sighed.

"Have you talked to the hospital? The doctor that performed the surgery?" Tifa asked, tucking a lock of long dark hair behind her ear.

"All of them. None of them know _anything_. And whenever I try to call the organ donor organization or whatever it is, I always get a recorded message." Roxas bit his lip. "It always happens. I've been trying since right after the surgery, when I was only thirteen. Nothing."

Tifa pursed her lips. "If that's the case, I can pull some strings and try to get an alternate number for the Dusk Foundation, where you got your kidney. I'm sure we have one somewhere in our records." She swiveled her chair around to pull at drawers in the wooden cabinet behind her. Each of her clients had a folder of their own, stuffed with doctor's reports, bank statements, and surgical descriptions.

As the young woman fumbled for Roxas's file, the client in question rubbed his eyes in frustration. If his insurance agent and future sister-in-law couldn't help him, then who could? Roxas didn't dare push Tifa for more information about the donor; he knew better than to make her choose between him and her job.

"If you don't mind me asking," Tifa said, pulling the file from the cabinet and setting it on her desk, "-why exactly do you want to know so badly? It's been four years. You might as well let it go."

Roxas licked his lips. What to tell her? That last week his doctor had informed him that the kidney he had gotten from the mysterious donor was failing? That he had been given less than a year to live?

"When I first got the surgery done, you and Cloud said I was doped up for a few days, right?" Roxas finally asked.

Tifa nodded, completely attentive to whatever Roxas was about to tell her.

Clearing his throat, the boy continued. "Well, sometime after the surgery, I don't remember when, I woke up. It must have been at night because everything was quiet and my room was dark. I remember not being able to sit up and my back and stomach hurt _awful_," he winced just remembering the pain. "While I was trying to figure out where I was - and _who_ I was - the door to the hallway opened. I remember the light from the doorway on the floor. It seemed really bright, and I wanted to close my eyes until I saw someone in the doorway. It was a guy, kind of tall, with short hair that was spiked up like crazy. I knew he was too tall to be Cloud and his hair was too crazy to be my doctor's, so I watched him. He must have thought I was asleep because he closed the door really softly and slowly walked over to my bed. He put his hand on my face for a second, and-"

"Roxas," Tifa interrupted him, her voice so soft the Roxas almost didn't hear her, about to describe the next part of his mysterious visit. Startled out of the memory, Roxas fixed his gaze on her, his eyes sparkling with curiosity as to why she stopped him.

"Roxas, you were dreaming. Lots of patients do that," she said, running her hand over her beautiful seashell paperweight. "Those painkiller drugs have been known to do weird things to people."

Roxas felt his cheeks go red and he sat up straighter. "I _wasn't_ dreaming," he said firmly. "I'm sure of it. I remember what he smelled like, what his hand felt like on my face, all of it."

Tifa still looked skeptical. She set her elbows on her desk and folded her hands together, setting her shin on her interwoven fingers. "Roxas, that's impossible. The kidney had been removed from your donor a week before it was shipped to you. Donors are usually in much more pain after their surgeries than the recipient of their organs, so it's very unlikely that your mystery guy was fit enough to be walking around. His kidney wasn't even removed at your hospital."

Unrelenting, Roxas furrowed his brows together and crossed his arms over his chest. "That was him. I'm sure it was. He even _said_ so." When Tifa lifted her head a little in interest, Roxas went on. "He talked to me for a while. He sat in the chair next to my bed and told jokes and talked about television shows and cars. He mentioned being the donor and stuff but didn't really talk that much about it."

Tifa's eyebrow quirked. She straightened herself, idly playing with the sleeve of her crisp blue blouse. Finally she met Roxas's gaze.

"Look, kiddo... I'll help you as much as I can, much as I think this is just a wild goose chase. Just don't do anything rash, okay?" she sighed.

Realizing this was probably Tifa's attempt to end the conversation, Roxas stood. "Yeah, thanks. You know our number. Take care, okay?" He offered her a boyish smile and the insurance agent grinned back.

"Sure thing. I have to admit, you have quite the formidable pout. Must have gotten it from your dorky brother," she teased, already opening his file to begin scanning for information. "Now shoo, I have work to do."

And shoo Roxas did, though not until he had invaded the employee bathroom one last time.

* * *

As usual, Roxas returned home to an eerily quiet condominium. He glanced at the VCR, proclaiming the time in bright green letters. It was just after seven 'o clock, meaning Cloud had left for work about a half hour ago.

Roxas fixed himself a Hot Pocket for dinner and retreated to his room, a tiny space inside the already cramped Las Vegas condo. Everything was where he had left it that morning before his trip to Tifa's office and then his agonizingly long visit to the medical labs. The bed was made, a pair of pajamas was folded neatly on the bed, and a computer was humming happily in the corner.

To say Roxas was a neat freak was a bit of an understatement. His baseball posters all were equally separated. His bed was patterned with red plaid to match the jerseys of the Red Sox, and unlike most seventeen-year-old boys Roxas always used his closet and dresser to store his clothes rather than throw them around on the floor. An untouched acoustic guitar was propped against the wall of one corner of his bedroom and a shelf of books was balanced over the headboard of his bed. Also unlike most teenagers, there was no television in his room, though Roxas figured a computer was all he really needed.

Setting his house keys and bus pass down on the dresser, Roxas plopped down in the swivel chair in front of the glowing screen. In seconds he had the internet open and was swiftly typing away on his favorite blogging site, a small nook of the World Wide Web with few users and lousy graphics. Roxas adored it.

_JULY 26 2008 7:15:02 PM  
_

_  
"Tifa can't really help me. She said the best she could do was try to get a hold of the Dusk Foundation's working phone number. Even though she's my brother's fiancée and very good at what she does, I still have my doubts about how much information she can legally get for me. It's like Mr. X purposely erased every trace of himself from me, with the exception of our encounter in the hospital."_

Roxas paused to ponder what to say next. His blog had few followers and in return he followed very few blogs, but those select people that _did_ know him were very aware of Roxas' obsession with who he called "Mr. X." And in some way Roxas was faintly hopeful that his donor would find his blog one day, read it, and leave some kind of passionate comment about why he had donated his kidney out of love for children and a sense of hope for the little thirteen-year-old blond boy withering away in his hospital bed. Although the probability of this was next to nothing, Roxas figured fantasizing couldn't hurt and continued to update.

_"I hope I can find him. He's given me the past four years of my life and I think I owe him for that. Maybe he has a son like me. It's funny what people will do when they meet a kid that reminds them of their own children. Or it could be a girl, I suppose, because they never did give me a specific gender and also __mentioned the kidney was unusually small enough to fit me. There are so many questions!"_

Roxas finished up the post by complaining about the rough way he had been treated at the lab that afternoon, such as not even getting a warning before the nurses had stuck a particularly large needle into his arm, making him jump. Roxas doubted anyone else would care, but blogging proved to be a fabulously good way to vent. He finally clicked the 'UPDATE' button and didn't bother checking his e-mail afterwards, instead opting to flop down on his bed and fall asleep. He awoke eight hours later to the sound of his bedroom door creaking open.

"Oh, did I wake you up? I'm sorry."

Roxas rolled over and blinked blearily up at the figure in the doorway. Cloud was still in his uniform: black pants and vest paired with a long-sleeved white shirt. Surely this wasn't the typical bartender ensemble, but then again, this was Vegas.

Sitting up in bed, Roxas swiftly cracked his neck to one side in order to purposely make his older brother wince. "Nah, it's fine. I should be getting up anyway."

"You know, you're probably the only kid in the world that actually _wakes_ up at three in the morning," Cloud said as he leaned against the doorway.

"And you're probably the only twenty-six year old guy in the world that still hasn't slept with his girlfriend," Roxas remarked with a smirk. Cloud glared and made a particular rude finger gesture. Roxas threw a pillow at him.

"Sorry but... seriously, that's kind of pathetic."

Cloud shrugged, unbuttoning his vest as he turned and began to walk towards his own room. "Sometimes it's best to wait."

Roxas decided to undress as well, internally scolding himself for sleeping in his clothes. Now he'd have to dig the iron out of his brother's hellhole closet. He redressed into a pair of khaki shorts and a white wifebeater, deciding that today he definitely was not going to go _anywhere_.

...well, except maybe the bathroom. Roxas spent about ten minutes heaving over the toilet, trying to figure out _what_ exactly his body was trying to expel since he hadn't eaten in hours. When he was done, Roxas staggered back into his room and plopped down in front of his computer.

He only had one e-mail, a notification that someone had commented on his blog. The username was unfamiliar, a rare occurrence. Roxas clicked open the link to this mystery person's comment, hope beginning to swell in his chest. His fantasies of Mr. X. finding his blog had perhaps come true, and Roxas felt his head buzz with excitement.

_COMMENT FROM FLOWERGIRL736  
_

__

"that's a shame; how those workers treated you. i'm a nurse and i would never act like that

_i hope you find mr. x. i've gone through some of your posts about him, and he does seem really mysterious. maybe he's some kind of criminal ;) j/k and good luck!"_

Deflated, Roxas closed out of the internet and sat back in his chair, staring at the blank screen in disappointment.

"Hey, Roxas." Cloud said from the doorway, making him jump in surprise.

"Holy- Cloud, don't _do_-"

"Tifa called and left a message on my phone." Cloud took a bite of the Snickers bar he had in one hand and read off of the Post-It pad he had relayed her message on. "She says the number you want to know is 1-800-538-8346. Who is that?" he asked, looking up.

"The Dusk Foundation," Roxas answered, grabbing his phone off the top of his dresser. "Oh, and do me a favor?"

Cloud shrugged. "Sure, what?"

"You, ah, may want to buy a plunger for the bathroom."


	2. Diet Coke Angst

**Anodyne**

_Chapter Two: Diet Coke Angst_

"You owe me like five blowjobs for this."

Roxas rolled his eyes.

"No, maybe like twenty blowjobs. A hundred blowjobs, even. Fuck."

"Seifer, can you please shut the hell up and drive?" Roxas snapped, leaning back in the passenger seat of Seifer Almasy's pick-up truck.

"You're lucky I feel sorry for you. Dying's gotta suck, right? Lucky I'm nice enough to take pity on your doomed ass and drive you around. You should be thanking me, not complaining."

To put an end to his banter, Roxas leaned forward and switched on the radio. Rap music blared from the speakers and Roxas was nearly thrown back into his seat. Seifer laughed.

"S'what you get, cripple. Keep your grimy paws off my radio."f

Roxas glared at the blond driver. The only reason Seifer was driving him and not Hayner was that Hayner always had wrestling matches on Saturdays. Roxas used to wrestle as well, in addition to being on the school's baseball team, until he fell dreadfully sick. Sports had been out of the question; Roxas had dropped out of school.

Seifer wasn't so much of a friend as he was a guy Roxas could go to whenever Hayner wasn't around. The two had known one another since seventh grade, when both boys had been on the same Little League team together after Roxas moved to Vegas from New Hampshire. By tenth grade Seifer had the bright idea to require a blowjob from Roxas whenever he wanted something, which worked out fine for the smaller blond. A boy never knew when sucking dick could get him out of trouble - which it often did.

"So why am I driving you out here again? Looking for your long lost kidney guy?"

"Something like that," Roxas muttered, anxious for this ride to end soon.

"Well if I were you, I'd knee him in the balls for giving you a failing kidney. I mean god, as much as you paid for that thing it shouldn't be fucking up." Seifer reached into his pocket and pulled out a crushed box of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it while he maneuvered the steering wheel with his knees. Roxas noticed that he didn't bother to unroll the window. "How much did you pay for it again?"

"Selling organs in the U.S. is illegal, but the foundation pays each donor money through the medical insurance place, overpricing the cost of the transplant itself. So I can't really say, maybe... a thousand dollars?" Roxas shrugged. "We didn't know the donor had been paid until after the surgery and we didn't really care."

"Geez, you totally got jipped," Seifer laughed. "Sucks."

A few moments later Seifer's Ford pulled into the parking lot of a small, flat building hardly wider than an average house. It had two windows, one on either side of a metal door. The words "DUSK FOUND. HQ" were painted in chipped dark blue paint on the door. The rest of the parking lot was completely empty.

"You're... sure this is it?" Roxas asked with a skeptic quirk of his eyebrow.

"Positive. Now get out and get your damn kidney guy file before I make you suck my cock right here."

Roxas leapt out of the truck and trudged up to the front door, looking over his shoulder to see in Seifer was watching. Seifer had his head buried in a motorcycle magazine and Roxas frowned. If a huge fire-spitting monster was on the other side of this door he trusted his driver to blow his nose, at most. Otherwise Roxas was on his own.

Roxas gripped the door handle and pulled with all his strength, met with a whoosh of cold air as it swung open. The inside of the building was dark and Roxas saw spots as he stepped inside, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.

An electric fan had been propped up on one of the old wooden chairs in the room, of which there were only three. The room itself was small, not much bigger than Roxas's bedroom at home, and smelled vaguely of formaldehyde. A wooden desk was situated in front of the chairs, covered with files, paperwork, and a laptop computer dating about 1996. But it was the person behind the desk that took Roxas most by surprise.

He was in his early fifties and the skin of his face was drawn taut over sunken green eyes, hollow cheekbones, and a pointed chin. Long dark blond hair had been pulled into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck, not even one stray lock hovered over his grimacing face.

"I'm sorry, young man," the receptionist drawled, his thin lips hardly moving, "but no minors are allowed without the company of a parent."

The sound of the electric fan was drilling itself into Roxas's head and did little to soothe his burning cheeks. "Excuse me?"

"Please remove yourself from this office."

Stunned, Roxas felt his embarrassment fading away. He sat down in one of the old chairs, meeting the man's acidic glare with a stern expression of defiance. The arms of the chair were held tightly in his grip.

"I don't have parents. I have a legal guardian."

"Well that's still not within the rules, now is it?" A smile tugged at the edge of the man's lips. "I'm sure you're here for a _very_ good reason, little boy, but I'm afraid that I still can't help you."

His jaw set, Roxas finally stood up and walked out without another word, slamming the metal door behind him.

Seifer stuck his head out of the driver's side window, squinting in the bright sun.

"Hey loser, up for a blowjob?"

Roxas glared at him as he climbed into the passenger seat, arms crossed firmly over his chest.

"Do you know a place around here where we can chill for a few hours? We're not leaving."

* * *

"You're staying at _Seifer's_ place?" Cloud exclaimed. Roxas winced at the volume, holding his cell phone away from his ear. Beside him Seifer was crouched in front of the door of the Dusk Foundation's office, fiddling with a lock. Leave it to a delinquent to know how to break into a place.

"Yeah, we uh. We were hanging out all afternoon and playing ball-" Roxas kicked Seifer in the shins when he began snickering, "-and he wanted to know if I could stay at his place for the night. He'll drive me home and everything." Roxas kicked at some gravel and glanced up at the night sky, glad there was a full moon so they would have some light to drive by.

"Sure, okay. But I'm giving you a bruise-check when you get home, okay? And do you have your medication?"

Roxas internally swore at himself. "Yeah," he lied. "And I've already eaten; we stopped at McDonald's earlier."

"Yeah, for five hours," Seifer grumbled. Roxas kicked him again.

"I guess I'll see you when you get home. Hey, do me a favor?" Cloud asked. "Go to bed at a really late time like a normal teenager. Seriously, going to bed at dinner and waking up at three in the morning can't be good for you."

Roxas smiled. "Sure thing, bro."

After he had hung up, the boy crouched next to Seifer to examine the lock. "Any luck?"

"Almost... you're really fucking lucky that his is an old door, otherwise I'd need more than a hairpin and a screwdriver to open it."

"Yeah, this place is kinda falling apart," Roxas looked up at the roof, which looked as if had seen quite a number of hurricanes, despite the fact that it was located in Nevada. Nights in the desert tended to be cool, and Roxas gave a little shiver. "Hurry, it's chilly."

"You're such a goddamn baby." With a loud 'click!' the door suddenly swung open. Seifer eagerly pushed Roxas inside, not willing to stick his own neck out should there be any kind of security system. "Ladies first."

Lucky for the both of them, no alarm went off and as far as Roxas could see there weren't any cameras. The two boys were silent as they crept through the room, opening the door behind the receptionist's desk gingerly. Roxas felt along the wall beside the door, finally finding a light switch and flicking it.

Fluorescent lighting blinked on, and Roxas realized he was looking into a short hallway. Grabbing Seifer by the arm, he pulled the two of them inside and then shut the door.

"Wonder where they keep the organs," Seifer whispered, looking around. "This is seriously bitchin'."

Roxas ignored him, instead focusing on the two doors on either side of the hallway. Each one had a label: "SPECIMINS", "LAB", "BASEMENT", and "RECORDS." Bingo.

Wondering if the people running this place were human enough to have a bathroom, Roxas pulled open the "RECORDS" door. Grabbing Seifer away from the "SPECIMINS" door, Roxas pulled them inside.

Like in the hallway, Roxas groped beside the door for a light switch. He let go of Seifer's arm as he felt along the wall, bathed completely in darkness. Not even light from the hallway dared peeking underneath the door. The entire situation gave Roxas an eerie feeling and he felt his stomach churn.

_CRASH._

"Fuck!"

Ignoring Seifer, Roxas finally flicked on the light. The brightness flickered for a few seconds before finally buzzing life, making Roxas squint. He looked around him, observing the small, ordinary room filled with rows of filing cabinets. Letters had been posted on the side of each cabinet like a library, and Roxas had no trouble finding his last name.

"Hey, are you gonna help me up or what, shithead?"

Roxas glanced over his shoulder to see one of the cabinets had tumbled over onto Seifer's leg. He didn't seem to be in any pain, and the cabinet didn't look that heavy to begin with. All of its contents had spilled out onto the floor, hundreds of patient's names and files. Roxas was slightly surprised. Weren't medical records locked up in most establishments?

"Sure, hang on," Roxas muttered, easily opening the cabinet containing his file. After flipping few about a dozen other names he finally found his own, pulling the manila file easily out from its neat place in between two other names.

Hands shaking, Roxas leaned against another cabinet and sat down, slowly peeling the front of the folder away from the first page. His eyes scanned information he already knew - his name, birth date, description of his case, description of his blood type, come on, come _on_, where _is it_?

"Roxas-"

"Shut up, Seifer!" Roxas cried desperately, flinging pages of his file everywhere.

"Fucking hell Roxas, we need to-"

"SHUT UP! I'm doing something!"

Roxas was so engrossed in his searching that he never heard the door open, never felt the floor shake as heavy footsteps made their way across the floor. Never noticed that Seifer had been silenced.

He didn't notice any of these things until a bearlike hand clamped down on his shoulder, and fingers thick as sausages yanked the file from Roxas's desperate grasp.

"Come with me."

* * *

"Recipes," the doctor said slowly. "You were going through confidential medical files looking for... recipes."

Roxas shot Seifer a glare. The two boys were clumped in the old chairs in the reception room of the building, the man who had introduced himself to be Dr. Lexaeus sitting across from them behind the front desk. Even though he was seated, the gargantuan man seemed to tower over both boys.

"No sir. Whatever Seifer told you was because he's an idiot."

"Oiy!"

"I used to be a client of yours," Roxas continued. "And whenever I called to access information about my record, no one bothered to answer the phone. So I just-"

"Ah," Lexaeus interrupted, smiling. "You must be Axel McCormick's organ recipient."

"Who?" Roxas shifted in his chair, suddenly very excited. "Was this Axel guy my donor?"

The doctor nodded, leaning back in his chair. Roxas winced as he heard the old chair creak under the man's massive bulk. He had to be two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle, at least, and probably hovered just below seven feet tall.

"Wait, if he wanted to be anonymous, how do you know him?" Roxas asked.

"Because I was the one that helped remove his kidney. That is to say, I performed part of the surgery."

Roxas stared incredulously at the man across from him, excitement bubbling inside his stomach. Though enormous fingers that had looked menacing at first suddenly took on a kind of mysterious appeal - fingers that had seen his donor, touched his donor, extracted the part of his body currently struggling to keep Roxas alive.

"So do you know where I can find him? I... that's why I came here. I've wanted to meet him really bad." An awkward silence descended for a moment at Lexaeus considered Roxas's offer. Seifer began to chew on bubblegum he had fished out of his pocket, the sound drilling nails into Roxas's head. He squirmed in his chair.

Finally Lexaeus gave him a small smile. "I think I can help you find him. However I cannot promise you'll enjoy his company."

Roxas shrugged off the comment. "Why wouldn't I? He saved my life."

"He's a rather shady individual," Lexaeus said, the chair creaking under his weight as he pulled it forward. The old computer whirred to life as he turned it on, logging on to the Dusk Foundation's sluggish server.

"So? Some would call me shady," Seifer said, rubbing his eyes.

"Seifer, drinking a twelve pack of Diet Coke in one day as an attempted 'overdose' doesn't make you shady," Roxas deadpanned.

Seifer popped his gum, frowning. "Fruit," he muttered, trying to suppress a yawn.

Roxas looked back over at Lexaeus, who was waiting for the patient information to load within the data space. To keep an awkward silence from descending upon the dark, musty room, Roxas continued. "So what do you mean by shady?"

"Axel is a man of his own devices. He's young, never been married, and lives alone in Los Angeles. While he's certainly not shy, he's rather solitary, and has a fairly long history of anger management problems. It's very easy to be suspicious of him." Lexaeus finally pulled up the information he needed, pulling a pad of paper out of one of the desk's drawers in order to write it down for Roxas.

Seifer popped his gum again and Roxas shot him an annoyed glare. Seifer stuck his tongue out at him, purposely chewing louder.

"I dunno, I figure if he gave me his kidney, he can't be that bad," Roxas said with a shrug, pulling his legs up Indian-style in his chair. "Especially because he wanted to remain anonymous. I think that's kind of humble, don't you?"

"I don't know if 'humble' is the proper adjective one would use to describe Axel," Lexaeus muttered, ripping the Post-It not off its pad. He leaned over the desk to hand the not to Roxas, where all of Axel's contact information had been listed in small, neat handwriting.

"Los Angeles, wow..." Roxas breathed. "How the hell am I gonna convince Cloud to let me go there to find this guy?"

"You won't," Seifer cut in, snatching the paper away to glance down at the address. "And if you think you can convince me to drive you there, you're _sorely_ mistaken. Not for all the blowjobs in the world."

Blushing, Roxas snatched the paper back. Lexaeus coughed awkwardly.

"Well, he is going to the Bahamas for his honeymoon," Roxas muttered, scratching his head in thought. "If I can hitch my way to L.A. he won't ever have to know."

"I hate to interrupt your train of thought," Lexaeus cut in, folding his arms over his massive chest, "-but I'm afraid I still need someone to clean up the atrocious mess in my records room."

Seifer moaned.

It took both boys over an hour to collect all the files and alphabetize them. The doctor took pity on the weary boys and agreed to right the fallen filing cabinet and re-file the folders if Seifer promised to drive Roxas straight home. So finally, at two-thirty in the morning, both boys stumbled out of the Dusk Foundation's headquarters, their fingers covered with paper cuts and their eyesight bleary.

As Seifer started up his truck he gave Roxas a slightly concerned look.

"Don't get me wrong, I don't give a damn about your shrimpy ass, but I have a bad feeling about this whole deal," he scoffed.

Roxas's head thunked against the window, his eyes already beginning to close. "Why not? He was a nice guy and we got the information we needed. He even," the boy paused to yawn, "-even didn't threaten to call our families. And let's face it, we deserved having to clean up that records room. Thanks to you."

Seifer shook his head. "I dunno, man. This whole deal with your donor seems kinda shady, seriously. And the filing cabinets weren't even _locked_, and I've busted into enough cabinets at school to know that it's kinda weird for that information to be so... open and unorganized. The whole place was kind of a dump, really, which wasn't what I was expecting."

"It's non-profit," Roxas argued. "Just because they have an old computer and stuff doesn't make it a dump, and doesn't mean they don't better people's lives."

"Hey, what the fuck ever," Seifer muttered. "Jeez, last time I put in my two cents."

Irritated, Roxas spent the rest of the ride in silence, not even putting up an argument when Seifer switched on his god-awful music. Luckily the truck pulled up to Roxas's house just before Cloud was scheduled to come home, so Roxas had time to hurriedly do his chores and hop in bed before his older brother walked in the door.

Roxas slept until noon, dreaming of the sun-paved streets of Los Angeles.


	3. Wheels on the Bus

**Anodyne**

_Chapter Three: Wheels on the Bus_

Cloud never noticed the growing stash of money under his little brother's pillow and if he did, he was certainly too busy with wedding preparations to take much notice of it. Roxas was fine with sitting back and watching his brother lose his mind, like any groom would. Have the flowers come in? Were the invitations stamped? Bronchitis or no bronchitis, that priest sure as hell wasn't going to be absent on the big day!

The wedding itself was a rather quiet event in Roxas's opinion. Random family members continued to nag him about his sickness, his parents, and oh, how's that baseball coming along? Roxas knew that if he were to inform them of his countdown to death, a good half would probably faint on the spot. And as interesting a hysterical spectacle would be, Roxas was unable to let himself ruin his brother's wedding like that. And so the wedding came and went, and Roxas remained a quiet cameo in Cloud's Big Day.

Roxas's quiet take on the whole wedding weekend was shattered when Cloud barged into his room clutching a half-packed suitcase.

"What do you want?" Roxas groaned, rolling over. "Come to give me the juicy details about the devirginization of your blushing bride?"

Cloud whacked him with the suitcase. Roxas swore loudly.

"Language. And I leave in half an hour, figured I'd go over some rules before I left."

"Whatever," Roxas said. He folded his arms behind his head and looked up at his brother, smiling. "You've got one hell of a hickey on your neck, by the way."

Cloud ignored the remark. "No parties. No blasting music. No dying. Call grandma every day. If you feel sick, even just a little bit, go to the hospital. Period."

"I feel sick every day."

"Well, more sick than usual then," Cloud said, running a hand through his hair. I'm doing this against my better judgment, you know. With you in such bad shape."

"I'll be fine, Cloud," Roxas whined. "Now go finish packing and get out of here!"

Cloud leaned down and kissed Roxas on the top of his head, then returned to packing. The boy laid in bed at least an hour after the front door finally closed, waiting for Cloud to come barging in at any moment to retrieve a forgotten hair brush, cell phone, or wallet.

Finally sure his brother was gone, Roxas leapt out of bed. He dressed quickly, throwing on a green shirt from Pac Sun and a clean pair of blue jeans. He pulled an old baseball duffel bag out from under his bed, already stuffed with clothes.

Shaking from excitement, Roxas stuffed his bus pass in his pocket and hurried out the front door of the condo. He fumbled to lock the door behind him, sprinting down the stairs of the building while his duffel bag flopped at his side.

The bus station was a run-down brown building five blocks from Roxas's condominium. His chest heaving from the sprint, Roxas plopped down on the metal bench in front of the building. He licked his lips and anxiously checked his watch, internally pleading the bus to hurry up. The online schedule had said the bus was coming to Vegas from Oklahoma - what if the pilgrims or whoever the hell it was that lived there were holding the bus hostage? What if the driver had been taken as a corn-husking prisoner, doomed for eternity? Roxas shuddered at the thought.

Roxas was already halfway through his dreamed-up bus rescue mission by the time the vehicle in question thundered up to the station. Heart beating rapidly in his chest, Roxas stumbled up the steps, showing his pass to the overweight, cheerful driver.

"Admit one to Los Angeles. Take a seat, kiddo."

His ears ringing, Roxas slid into the seat directly behind the driver. He set his head against the window and inhaled slowly, already beginning to dream about his mysterious savior.

Roxas awoke three hours later and was content to watch the dry, flat terrain as the bus moved into California. Five hours into the trip greeted him with the beginnings of civilization, passing through the expansive Southern California suburban towns. Roxas pressed his face against the glass and squinted, trying to catch and tall buildings that would signify his arrival in Los Angeles, or perhaps the crooked Hollywood sign on those famous rolling green hills.

On the other hand, traffic changed drastically. Roxas noticed the bus had pulled into a six-lane highway as it approached downtown L.A. while the population of buildings and people on sidewalks increased dramatically. After about twenty perilous minutes on the highway the bus took a sudden exit that would ease it slowly into the city. Roxas observed the other passengers collecting their things and waking their children.

It happened so fast. One minute Roxas was in his comfortable seat and the next he was shuffling down the steps of the bus with a dozen impatient passengers behind him, duffel back clutched tightly in his sweaty hand. He retreated to a nearby bench as the other passengers jostled one another down the steps. He watched them one by one either duck into the bus station or hail a taxi and disappear into the city. To his surprise the streets weren't as packed as he would have expected.

Finally Roxas trudged through the bus station door where a wrinkled old man was working at the front desk. The boy's eyes fell upon a stack of laminated maps on the desk and, still shaking, he approached the front and picked one up to flip through the smooth pages where each street within L.A. had been labeled neatly. Even the bus schedule was featured on the back.

"Three dollar fifty," the man suddenly grumbled from beneath his wrinkles. Startled, Roxas reached for his back pocket. A map was certainly a worthwhile investment, especially considering how _big_ the city seemed.

But his wallet wasn't in his back pocket. Or his front pocket, or the pocket of his jacket, or in his shoes or in his hair or his duffel bag or _anywhere_.

Roxas stared blankly at the front desk, his mind racing. His wallet had been in his pocket upon boarding the bus, he knew that for sure. Maybe someone had stolen it? He considered the people that had sat near him - a pair of middle-aged women behind him and an old man dozing in a seat across the aisle. He also remembered a young marine sitting in a seat directly diagonal from him. Depressingly, none of those people seemed like possible suspects.

Perhaps someone nicked his wallet while he had slept? It was possible. But had he really been so sleepy that the feeling of someone sitting next to him and cupping a hand under his backside to slide his wallet out would go completely unnoticed?

The boy wandered back outside the bus station and slumped down on his bench. A quick, desperate search through his duffel bag revealed that, no doubt about it, his wallet was definitely _gone_. Meaning there was only one thing he could do.

Roxas shrugged his bag over his shoulder and began walking down the wide L.A. sidewalk. He ignored the cars that flew past him on the beautiful girls that strode by like high fashion models. His searching eyes finally fell upon a Dunkin' Donuts. Bingo.

Hoping the cartoon were right, Roxas slid inside the front door. He took a few seconds to revel in the cool air conditioning that lovingly blew upon his face. One thing was for sure, Los Angeles and Vegas both shared unbearably hot climates.

Roxas scanned the small, dirty donut shop. A bored-looking Hispanic woman was slouching behind the register and for the most part, the place was pretty much empty. An old woman was quietly reading a newspaper and sipping her coffee at one of the booths, while some rock star wannabe in a blue shirt fiddled with an iPhone.

Wait.

The boy hurried over to the young man, whose wild red hair fanned out from the back of his head like a Triceratops's frill. His lean face was pale and tattooed below both acid-green eyes. The letters "LAPD," beautiful to Roxas's eyes, were printed in white on his shirt.

"Uh, excuse me," Roxas squeaked. The man's eyes shot up in his direction like bullets. Roxas squirmed. "Look, I'm not from around here and I think my wallet got sto-"

"How old are you?" His speech was drawled, almost in a sarcastic way, and somewhat nasal. The man leaned back in his chair and threw one skinny arm over the back of it so he was twisted halfway in Roxas's direction. He looked dreadfully thin to Roxas, even more so from this angle than from the back.

"I'm seventeen," Roxas answered honestly. "And if you're about to ask for my parents, they're not around."

"Fair enough," to cop said. He looked somewhat annoyed, and Roxas deduced that he must have been on his lunch break.

"I just got off a bus from Vegas and... I think someone riding near me took it."

"Take a seat, kid." Despite the numerous 'NO SMOKING' signs posted around the shop, the policeman fished a cigarette out of a half-empty box in his pocket. Roxas noticed the lighter he used bore a cheerful picture of Mickey Mouse.

"First thing's first - what's your name, and what the fuck were you doing hopping a bus from Vegas to L.A.?"

"I have a terminal disease," Roxas answered coldly. Why wasn't he filling out a report? Where was his car, his reinforcements, his gun?! "I wanted to see L.A. before I kicked the bucket for good."

The cop threw back his head and laughed a reaction that startled Roxas to the point of nearly falling out of his plastic seat. This only got him all the more flustered, his cheeks reddening from anger and frustration.

"Jesus, kid. If you knew how many times I got that fucking sob story." He took another drag on his cigarette, purposely blowing the smoke in Roxas's direction. The boy waved a hand in front of his face wildly, his eyes watering partly from irritation and partly from outright anger.

"Y-you're an asshole! Are you even a real cop?!" Roxas snapped, glowering across the sticky table.

"Which bus station?" the cop asked calmly.

"Uh... the one right up the street."

The cop reached into the pocket not containing cigarettes and pulled out an enormous cell phone reminiscent of the early 1990's. Roxas watched him, tight-lipped, as he swiftly scrolled through several dozen stored numbers and selected one. He coolly inquired about any lost objects on a recent bus from Vegas, lips pulled into a half-smile. Roxas felt like smacking him.

"Thanks, I'll be there shortly," he finished sweetly. The officer slid the phone back into his pocket. "Well, disease-boy, seems like your ass repels leather. Your wallet's at the station."

Relief flooded through the boy, followed closely by the sinking feeling of embarrassment and then complete horror. He could have just asked the guy at the bus station if anyone had turned anything in - but no, he had to go and get a _cop_ involved in his business!

"Are you going to force me to go home?" Roxas asked, slumping back into his chair.

The cop shrugged. "Probably. I'd get in a lot of trouble if you turned out to be a drug dealer or something, smuggling shit over state lines and all that jazz."

The look Roxas shot the cop was a withering one, his arms crossed over his chest. "Do I look like a drug pusher to you?" he said angrily, lips forming a quite manly version of the _pout_.

The officer stared back, one eyebrow raised as he looked the blond over. "You look like a kid who managed to lose his wallet before even getting on the street. Now, do you want a ride to get it or not?"

"Sure, but tell me your name first," Roxas shot back. At the cop's quirked eyebrow, he blushed and added, "Just... so I'll know."

"You can call me Max," the redhead answered with a smirk.

"I guess by that you mean it's not your real name?"

"This is Los Angeles, not fucking Happy Days," Max laughed. "We should get going."

Max wouldn't let Roxas sit in the front seat of his car for regulatory reasons, so instead the teen had to be satisfied with a back seat. The bulletproof glass between himself and the officer was a little unsettling, and Roxas felt himself begin to sweat. Running away wasn't a criminal offense, was it?

Roxas pressed his lips against the few holes in the glass. "Hey, why did we have to drive? We could have walked to the bus station."

"Can't leave the department's car unattended," Max explained. He expertly maneuvered the car into a tight space next to the sidewalk of the depot, both bumpers mere inches from the cars in front and behind it.

Roxas immediately tried to open the door to get out, giving a little huff of protest when it stayed stubbornly shut. There was no lock, either, that he could see. "Hey," he said a little urgently, pressing his face to the window and looking with wide eyes at the cop standing there, who looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Let me out, asshole!" Roxas yelled, trying the door handle again.

Max let the kid struggle a little longer before stepping up to the car and pulling the handle suddenly, Roxas in turn coming tumbling out on to the ground. "You throw a pretty good temper tantrum, kiddo," he commented, fisting his hands in the embarrassed blond's shirt and helping him to his feet. "The doors are locked on the inside. We can't have criminals opening the door and running away, now can we?"

Roxas was extremely tempted to make a rude finger sign but resisted, figuring Max could use that against him, or at the very least tell his brother when they undoubtedly came in contact. The boy pushed the mental image of his brother's reaction to the whole situation to the back of his mind; such a thing was far too frightening to think about right now.

The same man at the desk was there. Max retrieved Roxas's wallet wordlessly, snatching it back when the boy tried to take it from him.

"Hey, that's mine!"

"Oh really? Because to me, it's evidence. This could be a federal offense we're talking about here," Max purred. "Tell me, do you come from an abusive home? Did someone on the bus on the way here touch you in a _bad place_?"

"Bitch! Give it back!" Roxas stood on his tiptoes in a sorry attempt to snatch the wallet back, to which Max merely laughed and pushed him back with one large hand against his forehead. With the other hand he opened Roxas's plain leather wallet and wriggled his identification card out, eyes darting over the words. For the briefest of seconds his eyes widened - perhaps it was at the metallic grin Roxas gave the camera in his picture, teeth gleaming with braces. He flicked the card back in his wallet and Roxas snatched it away, still glaring.

The look on Max's face was grave. He pursed his lips, nodding at the man behind the counter in silent thanks and grabbing Roxas by the arm. "Come on. My ass is on the line if I don't take you down to the station and make a formal call to your parent or legal guardian."

Roxas was stunned, but after following complacently for a few seconds, he started to struggle. "Let me go! You helped me get my wallet back, I don't need anything else," he growled, trying to pry Max's hand off of his upper arm as the officer tugged him out the door. "Fucking let me go!"

The cop practically threw Roxas in to the back seat, slamming the door and shooting a threatening look at the people passing by who'd stopped to watch. He climbed into the front seat and slammed the door, ignoring the insults Roxas was still shouting at him from the backseat. He pulled out into the street and silently began to weave through the many confusing streets of the city.

Roxas eventually stopped cussing, crossing his arms over his chest and watching the city float by before his eyes. So much for finding this Axel guy - but then again, it was a stupid idea anyway. He wouldn't have been able to save him, and it was doubtful he'd know what exactly was wrong with hid kidney. For all Roxas knew, he could be dead right now. After all, his other kidney couldn't be in much better shape either.

"You're awfully quiet," Roxas finally said, wanting to get his mind off what a failure this plan had been. He would probably ruin Cloud's whole vacation when his brother found out.

Max glanced in the rearview mirror at Roxas's face. "Yeah?"

"I mean, you seemed pretty talkative before. You sure liked patronizing me."

A smile tugged at the cop's lips. "Well, I'm a policeman. It's my job to intimidate people."

Roxas slid down a little in his seat, playing with the hem of his shirt. "You didn't have to be such an asshole about it," he muttered unhappily, looking out the window at the buildings they passed. As they came to a stop at a light, a pretty girl on the corner in shorts that barely counted and a halter top winked at him and put a hand on her hip, licking her lips.

Roxas stared back, about to say something when Max spoke up. "You see a lot of that around here," he explained flatly, pulling away when the light turned green. "She's new. The experienced ones know that a kid in the back of a cop car usually doesn't have any money."

"I have three hundred bucks!" Roxas snapped. Max was about to reply until his radio abruptly crackled to life.

"Car 44-0, you there?" The voice was female, but the crackling of the feedback made it hard to tell.

"Mhm. Whatcha need? Hit and run?"

"No, harassed celebrity. You know how it is."

Max sighed, flipping on his turn signal to move onto another avenue that would take him to the ritzier side of town. The woman on the radio relayed where the celebrity was located, and Max gave her gruff replies as he headed for a job he undoubtedly disliked.

"Are celebrities mean?" Roxas asked suddenly from the backseat.

Max shrugged. "Depends. Most are just kinda frantic."

"You got someone with you, McCormick?" the woman on the radio asked. "You need someone else to take on the paparazzi?"

"Yeah, thanks. I just have a kid I have to return to his parents," Max said, and switched off the radio. He glanced into the rearview mirror again. "That was Elena. She's pretty nice, never busts me for fucking around when I'm on duty."

Roxas didn't reply.

"Kid? You okay?"

Roxas stared straight ahead, telling himself it was a coincidence, how it was impossible, there were at least a million people in this city. But the sacred word that had crackled over the radio still rang in his ears, and he felt himself begin to shake.

McCormick.


	4. Panties Drop

**Anodyne**

_Chapter Four: Panties Drop_

"It's always the quiet ones, you know?"

Roxas looked up, startled out of his trance. Max was staring at him in the rearview mirror, one tiny eyebrow quirked. What kind of self-respecting American man _plucked_ their eyebrows to begin with?

"I'm sorry, what?" Roxas sat up. He noticed Max rolling his eyes in the mirror.

"You didn't hear a word I just said, did you?"

"I guess not. I don't make a habit out of talking with people who throw me in and out of cars."

"Touché." The officer turned onto a street made up almost entirely of Grecian restaurants. Roxas's mouth began to water; he hadn't eaten all day and the idea of a hot Mediterranean lunch sounded nothing short of delicious. He almost spaced out again until Max spoke.

"I mean the quiet ones as in criminals. The kids that are so quiet and nice that end up being killers when they grow up. You wouldn't _believe_ the people I see brought in for questioning due to death threats or possession of weapons at school. S'pretty sad." At Roxas's confused silence, Max laughed and explained, "I just saw one of those kids coming out of a restaurant is all. Lengthen your attention span, Cibola."

"Ci-_what_?" Figuring it was another insult, Roxas glared at the cop in his mirror.

"God_damn_ are you dim. Cibola's the ancient word for Vegas." Max tapped his temple with one finger, smirking. "The things you learn from King novels."

Roxas blinked. He sat back against the seat and returned his gaze to the window, watching the cafes and shops and people of this new and beautiful city rush by. There must be a million people in Los Angeles, and what on earth were the chances that the cop driving this car was his real donor? McCormick wasn't an altogether uncommon name, and Max certainly didn't seem to be the gentle, loving type of person that would donate an organ to some kid. His unnatural thinness could explain the small size of the kidney, but he was still much older and taller than Roxas, especially since the boy had been a sick thirteen-year-old.

But the chances, what were the chances?

"Where are we going, exactly?" Roxas asked as they turned into a district that looked very much Hispanic.

"Well, I said I'd return you to your parents, didn't I?"

Roxas quirked an eyebrow. "You're driving me back to Vegas?"

Max laughed. "Hell no. I'm taking you to the station. We'll call your parents and they'll have to come retrieve you at the LAPD headquarters which I'm sure will be tons of fun."

Roxas pressed his face against the glass, banging on it with his fist.

"You fucker! I already told you, I don't _have_ parents!"

"Precisely why I'm taking you to the station. Background checks take all of five minutes and without a doubt I'd be able to find your parent or legal guardian, call 'em up, and have a happy little chat. I'll admit, I'm looking forward to the happy little chat part."

Tears stung Roxas's eyes as anger bubbled up inside him. How dare this cocky asshole not only destroy Cloud's honeymoon but also the very foundation of their friendship!

"Did you miss the part about me dying? That seeing L.A. is like my final wish?! What kind of awful person wouldn't even let a sick kid like me get to see the city of his dreams?!" Roxas began to beat the seat beside him with his fist, glaring daggers into the rearview mirror.

Max sighed, reaching into his pocket and pulling out another cigarette. He maneuvered the steering wheel of the car with his knees as he lit up, smoothly navigating through the streets as if he had done this millions of times before. He kept his eyes on the road, never catching Roxas's deathly looks in the rearview mirror.

"Hello?! Are you listening to me?!" Roxas cried right up against the small holes in the thick plastic.

Max scowled, finally speaking. "Look, kid. Roxas. This isn't very fun for me either, you know that?" At Roxas's silence, the man went on, "I get blamed for everything that goes wrong at the station. I always fuck up my missions. In short, this job _sucks_. And you're making it suck even more by being a bitch." He paused in order to take a drag of his cigarette, the smoke slowly drifting out from between his thin lips as he exhaled. "In short, just accept your fate. Makes my life a hell of a lot easier."

Roxas sat back, deflated. Max's calm response had definitely overruled any more objections. Still, there had to be a way to stay in this city, even if it killed him.

A few more awkward moments passed in complete silence. The officer finished his cigarette and tossed it out the window. Roxas continued to stare blankly out at the street, watching his breath fog up the glass even on such a hot, dry day. The boy's panic began to recede into a kind of anxiety, making his head throb and his fingers twitch at the thought of what was to come when Cloud found out about his escape to California. His face paled and his stomach churned with-

Oh no.

"You have to pull over," Roxas suddenly croaked, bringing his knees up to his chest and curling his body forward. "I'm gonna be sick."

"Yeah right. You damn well better keep your stomach where it is, I just cleaned out some drunk fuck's puke last night."

"No, I'm serious," Roxas whined, beginning to rock from side to side. His movements didn't seem to have any effect on the burning sensation beginning to creep up his esophagus.

"I'm not stupid, kid."

"Pull over! God, please!"

And then Roxas was lurching forward, his entire body shaking as foul-smelling, acidic bile poured from his mouth and onto the floor of the police car. The boy could barely hear Max's swearing over the ringing of his ears or the heaving, choking sounds the back of his throat was making. Luckily he hadn't eaten much that day and his vomit was fairly watery rather than chunky, and before long he was merely dry-heaving. The boy hadn't even noticed that Max was saying something about how gross he was and how he was damn lucky there was a carwash up ahead, or how he was going to make him pay big time if the mat of the car was ruined from his violent discharge.

When Roxas finally looked up, bleary-eyed and pale, Max was turning into what appeared to be an extremely run-down Mexican carwash. The redhead parked in front of one of the booths meant for cleaning the interior of the car and climbed out, walking briskly over to Roxas's side of the car and unlocking the door. His large hand wrapped around Roxas's still shaking arm and began to pull him out of the back of the vehicle.

"C'mon, Cibola. Let's clean this mess up."

Roxas took a few deep breaths as he leaned against the back of the car, watching through half-lidded eyes as the cop pulled the backseat mat out between his thumb and forefingers. The redhead's face was twisted into a disgusted scowl, and Roxas almost felt the urge to laugh at the ridiculous spectacle if it wasn't for the fact that it was his own stinking vomit dripping from the fabric.

"Sheesh, kid, there's even blood on here." Max reached into his back pocket and pulled out a few coins, pushing them into the machine. The mat slapped against the ground as Max dropped it on the concrete. He squirted it with a generous amount of shampoo and began to rub the machine's extendable Spot-Lifter atop it.

After about thirty seconds of steady breathing Roxas straightened up, running a hand through his mussed hair. Luckily his clothes were completely free of any kind of stain. The boy glanced back at Max, who was still bent over the mat, scrubbing it with the Spot-Lifter and muttering angrily to himself under the steady roar of the cleaning machine.

This would be his only chance.

Without any hesitation Roxas turned on his heel and took off for the street, turning swiftly around the corner of a building and nearly running into a lamppost. He drew no attention from the people he passed, even when a very tall and very pissed-off police officer rounded a corner and sprinted after his escaped prisoner.

Roxas knew he was doomed as soon as he stumbled over the crack in the sidewalk and the steady rhythm of Max's huge feet hitting the pavement came closer and closer. _He must really be flying_, the boy thought as he quickly ducked into a lingerie store, his last attempt at preserving his freedom. _Why the hell did I have to have such short goddamn legs?!_

A split second later Max crashed into the store, grabbing the fleeing blond around his waist and sending them both flying into a rack of thongs. The both of them were swearing and screaming at one another, oblivious to the dozen or so women in the store that stared in complete shock and horror at the sight of a little blond boy being pinned against the floor by an enraged police officer, an expensive pair of lacy delicates hanging off one red spike.

The two young men struggled amidst a sea of panties, their angry cursing digressing into exhausted panting. Max let go of Roxas's wrist, while the boy loosened the fingers around the other's throat before letting his hand drop. The two scarcely had time to catch their breath before the manager of the store appeared, obviously annoyed as she asked Max what _exactly_ the problem was and why he needed to chase his prisoner into _her_ organized, perfumed store.

"Won't happen again, ma'am," the officer assured her as he got to his feet. He grabbed Roxas's arm and pulled the wheezing boy up with him, twisting his wrist behind his back. "You know how slippery these kids can get. In your car one minute, down the street the next."

"Of course," the manager said with narrowed eyes. "But please refrain from _wrestling_ with your 'prisoners' on the floor of my lingerie boutique. It gives my clients the wrong impression of my fine establishment."

"Of course." Max gave the woman one last sheepish grin before she turned around and began to pick up the fallen racks of underwear.

The officer glared at Roxas, who didn't have the strength in him to glare back. Max felt around his belt for his handcuffs and, upon finding none, resorted to snatching a fuzzy pink pair off of a rack while the manager still had her back turned. He ripped off the packaging and grabbed Roxas's other wrist, pulling both his arms behind his back before he snapped the cuffs shut and led the boy casually out of the shop.

"I can't believe that you totally stole those handcuffs."

"And I can't believe that you _totally_ ran away from a police officer who had you in custody, to a _lingerie_ store, where you then proceeded to strangle said officer who, under call of duty, followed you inside against his wishes," Max mimicked. He fisted a chunk of Roxas's hair in one large hand and dragged the whimpering boy back to the carwash, where the department vehicle had remained untouched. Even the machine was still whirring.

"You led me down the streets of Los Angeles in _fuzzy pink handcuffs_," Roxas retaliated, scowling. A smile crept across Max's features at his comment.

"Yeah? Sorry kid, no idea what happened to my metal ones. Musta left them _on a goddamn bus_."

Words could not begin to describe the anger Roxas felt at that, and all the boy could do was kick at the ground like a petulant child and make frustrated, if amusing, noises. For some reason the cop found this endlessly amusing, judging by the broad grin on his thin face as he switched off the spot-lifter and wrung out the still-damp mat.

"There," he said flatly, holding up the mat. "Your puke came out of it. You're damn lucky it did, too." The cop opened the car door and set the mat back down. "Get in."

Roxas glared at Max, planting his feet firmly in place. He'd be damned if he was going anywhere with that asshole.

Max put a hand on his hip, staring back coolly. He drummed his fingers on the door, the action betraying his irritation. "We both know you're getting in this car one way or another. It's up to you which way."

Roxas spat on the ground and pulled more at his cuffs. He ignored Max's threats, an idea beginning to take shape in his mind.

"Hey, throwing a tantrum isn't gonna get you anywhere, you fuckwad." Roxas cried out as Max's fingers grasped at his hair, yanking him towards the door. His head was almost inside the vehicle when the boy lifted his foot and brought it down upon Max's. Roxas's head whacked against the top of the car as Max recoiled, swearing loudly.

Max took a few steps back, wagging his sore foot as Roxas pulled his head out of the car and leaned against the open door. He noticed the kid was smirking, for some reason. Cocky bastard probably thought he was real smooth, getting such a pissed off reaction from a cop such as himself.

"Hey, Axel?" Roxas asked.

"Yeah?" The words had barely left the cop's lips before a sneakered foot was whirling towards his head in what appeared to be a rather vicious roundhouse kick. To Max's amusement the kid lacked the advantage of using his arms for balance and missed his head entirely, the power behind the kick causing him to stagger. This gave the officer enough time to lunge, pinning Roxas against the side of the car by gripping his cuffed arms.

"Smooth, Cibola. Quite the bitch, aren't you?"

"I knew it! Oh God, I _knew_ it!"

The officer blinked. Roxas's words sounded hitched, as if he were crying. And sure enough, upon peeking over the kid's shoulder he saw the telltale glistening to tears on the boy's smooth, young face.

"Kid?"

Roxas lifted his head and rested his chin on his shoulder, not daring to look at the officer. He didn't even notice that he man ad let go of his arms, letting him rest against the side of the car as his body shivered. Finally, he took a shuddery breath and spoke. His voice was so low and breathy that Max had to lean forward in order to hear it.

"Axel. I called you Axel."

"...Yeah. Yeah, you did." Axel McCormick stood stupidly behind the crying boy, shoving his hands awkwardly in his pockets.

"I knew it. You... you lied. You're the one who, who..." Roxas bit his lip to keep from crying again, his eyes squeezing shut as liquid rushed to his tear ducts.

"Is that, uh, is that why you kicked me?" Axel asked softly with an air of humor.

Roxas sniffed, his watery smile widening a little.

"No. That was because you're a bitch."

"Guess I deserved it, then," Axel quipped. He pulled his hands out of his pockets to lift one of Roxas's arms, kneeling down to inspect the fuzzy pink monstrosities still locked around them. "Shit, how am I gonna get these off? I think I left the keys at the shop, dammit."

"You donated a kidney." Roxas said. "You donated a kidney and it's _in my body_."

"Tell me something I don't know," Axel grumbled as he began to pull at the handcuffs. His mind wandered as he tinkered with the lock mechanism. Did Roxas hate him now, the absolute reject of what his mind had probably conjured up as the perfect savior? But the kid had laughed a little when he had croaked out those words, unless it had been the kind of laugh one emits when totally horrified. Shit, and he had admitted to only having six months to live, too. Some welcome he had gotten from his "donor."

The cuffs clicked and Axel slipped them off Roxas's wrists.

"There was a kind of emergency button under the fuzz, I guess in case someone gets too frisky," Axel said. He clipped the cuffs to his belt out of habit.

His hands free, Roxas lifted them to his reddened face. His body was shaking even more now, and Axel had a vague feeling that the kid was going to be sick again. The boy showed no signs of heaving however, crying silently for at least a minute until Axel placed an awkward hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Cibola. It'll be okay. Calm down."

Coaxed by the soft words, Roxas slowly let his hands fall to his sides. His eyes were red and tears still dripped from his chin, but he still managed to scowl in that way Axel had already become so familiar with. It wasn't even much of a scowl, in fact, more of a pout. The picture was almost cute, in a way.

"Are you still gonna send me home?" Roxas asked.

Axel bit his lip. How to answer? Saying no meant he would have to take the kid in, and also meant endangering his job and reputation if anyone found out. But saying yes meant handing this poor, sick kid over to another sick months of waiting for death's cold hands to take him while withering away in some dark room in the outskirts of Las Vegas.

"We'll see, okay? Just don't cry again, okay? That shit won't cut it here."

"Bastard," Roxas said, still pouting. Scowling? No, definitely pouting.

Axel crossed his arms over his chest. He figured the two had been here at the carwash for at least ten minutes, decking out this entire soap opera while dozens of people probably watched. He self consciously scanned the buildings around, as if some nosy old woman had her ugly face pressed against the glass. He didn't see anything of the sort, but figured it was best to end this soap opera before the drama progressed.

"Hey, I'll take you to my apartment, okay? You can chill there for a while. I've got cable and everything," Axel said. He patted the side of the car. "I'll even let you ride shotgun. Just no more crying or puking."

"Okay." Wiping the back of his nose with one hand, Roxas opened the passenger side door and climbed inside.

Axel closed the door for him, then leaned against the side of the car and placed a fresh cigarette between his lips. The cop took a few seconds to admire the flame as it danced against the tip of the cancer stick, smoke already beginning to drift into the air.

Goddamn, he'd really fucked up this time.


End file.
